Stephen Crabb: We have discussed the issue in detail with not only stakeholder organisations representing the interests of animals, but lawyers who have represented victims. The hon. Gentleman is shaking his head, but this is true. We have discussed the matter in detail with lawyers representing the insurance industry. They have a given a written explanation—I will happily send it to him—of the way in which the 2003 Mirvahedy judgment has "muddied the waters" and led to greater confusion and uncertainty over claims in the area.

Stephen Crabb: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention.
	The opaque language of section 2(2) of the 1971 Act has been widely criticised. Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, in his 2003 judgment, stated:
	"there has been a difference of judicial opinion. This difference of view exists also in your Lordships' House... In common with all other judges who have had to wrestle with this question, I have found that the tortuous language of section 2(2)(b) renders its intended meaning peculiarly difficult to ascertain. I readily acknowledge that my mind has fluctuated between the two interpretations."
	It might be helpful if I explain the legal background in a little more detail. Section 2(2) of the 1971 Act focuses on the damage caused by non-dangerous animals, but does so in an unfortunately complex way. It places strict liability on the keepers of non-dangerous animals that cause harm, assuming that three requirements are satisfied. The first requirement is:
	"the damage is of a kind which the animal, unless restrained, was likely to cause or which, if caused by the animal, was likely to be severe".
	The second requirement, which is crucial to this discussion, is:
	"the likelihood of the damage or of its being severe was due to characteristics of the animal which are not normally found in animals of the same species or are not normally so found except at peculiar times or in particular circumstances".
	The third requirement is:
	"those characteristics were known to that keeper".
	Although the first and third points are clear and non-controversial, it is perhaps unsurprising that the courts have struggled to understand the language of that second requirement. My Bill would address precisely that problem.
	In the Mirvahedy case, the court had to judge whether the provision referred only to a particular dangerous animal, or whether it could also refer to a perfectly normal animal that just happened to display dangerous characteristics typical of a species at a particular time or in particular circumstances, whether predictable or not. Clearly, the latter interpretation broadens the scope of the requirement, and in Mirvahedy  v. Henley that was the side that their lordships ultimately chose.
	It is important to understand the details of the case that led to this landmark ruling. Horses belonging to the Henleys were spooked. Although they had been securely fenced in, they were so scared that they managed to break through the fences. They ran for a mile before coming to the road along which Mr. Mirvahedy was driving and collided with his car, tragically causing him serious injuries. At no stage was there any question that the Henleys had been in any way negligent. The case was initially found in favour of the Henleys, but once it was taken on appeal under the Animals Act 1971, the Henleys were found liable to pay for the harm caused, although they had not been negligent and were powerless to prevent their horses from getting spooked and breaking out.
	Given the seriousness of Mr. Mirvahedy's injuries, he was entitled to compensation. The legal case was thus fought out between his insurers and those of the Henleys to determine which insurance company would pay. However, the fact that the judgment was found against the Henleys has had severe consequences for those in the equine industry, because of the subsequent rise in insurance premiums.

Andrew Dismore: There is a counter-intuitive argument here, which the hon. Lady raised from the wrong perspective, and that is that strict liability is clear, and if it is removed and replaced by a return to the common-law test of negligence—I am not sure whether the Bill achieves that, but we may come to that later—there will be more litigation because the law will be less clear because it will be reliant on discussions on the law of negligence and whether liability attaches. Strict liability is clear, negligence is not, so more case will go to court and more money will go to lawyers and less to victims.

Andrew Dismore: I had wanted to put that point to the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire in an intervention. He talked about other legislation relating to dogs. That is primarily made up of two Acts—the Guard Dogs Act 1975 and the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991. Neither of them create civil liability; they create only criminal liability and therefore are not a basis for a compensation claim.

Bill Wiggin: The size of the premium reflects the risk. The risk is not necessarily in the number of claims but in their size. The insurance company essentially needs to gets its money back and that is why the breadth of the liability, not the number of cases or claims, causes the premium to go up.

Bill Wiggin: I welcome the Bill and pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb) for his hard work and for using the opportunity of being drawn in the ballot to introduce it. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr. Robertson), whose ten-minute Bill two years ago raised the profile of this important matter.
	As for declaring interests, I am the owner of some cows, a bull and a few sheep, but I am allergic to the dust in horses' coats. It gives me a hay fever-type reaction, which is very unpleasant. Despite that, I am a patron of Herefordshire's riding for the disabled.
	As hon. Members will know, the Bill has considerable cross-party support. The recent early-day motion 1092, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire, and the earlier early-day motion 14, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice), which I co-sponsored, have attracted widespread support. That is because there is a strong feeling that the operation of the current law is unfairly punitive, especially in relation to animal ownership and riding schools.
	I support the Bill because it will help to correct an anomaly in the law that I do not believe Parliament intended. I do not believe that Parliament would have legislated to provide that the strictest liability be applied to animal owners when their animals have been involved in an accident, even when the owner has taken all reasonable steps to anticipate and prevent it. Nor do I think that Parliament intended to cause rising insurance premiums or to strangle riding schools and force them out of existence.
	During the original debate on the 1971 Act, section 2 received little comment. It was referred to mostly as a code, bringing together the existing laws and the recommendations of the 1967 Law Commission report on civil liabilities for animals. However, it is worth mentioning the short debate on section 2 in the other place, which appears to support the notion that Parliament and the Government of the time may not have intended the Act to be interpreted as it was in the Mirvahedy case. The late Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham of St. Marylebone, commented on how the Bill had changed from an earlier draft. In relation to concerns about an owner becoming liable for
	"normal acts on the part of such an animal, which in certain circumstances could cause danger",
	he reassured the other place that:
	"in the case of an animal not belonging to an inherently dangerous species, only that animal's abnormal characteristics can give rise to liability."—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 29 October 1970; Vol. 312, c. 197.]
	Furthermore, on Second Reading in this House, the then Attorney-General indicated that the provisions of section 2 originally proposed by the Law Commission had been changed so that
	"where an animal has mischievous propensities, the keeper is liable only for such damage as is due to such propensities."
	That is good legalese. He explained this change, commenting that in the Bill as previously drafted,
	"a perfectly harmless animal but one which might be capable of doing damage would render the owner liable. For instance...a horse might be capable of causing damage if it were suddenly frightened; obviously, it is capable of kicking out and causing damage. Therefore, the change which is made in the Bill is that the keeper shall be liable only for a mischievous propensity of which the owner must know."—[ Official Report, 27 January 1971; Vol. 810, c. 738-39.]
	That change was the insertion of section 2(2)(b), which, as hindsight has demonstrated, provides contention and uncertainty rather than the improvement and clarification that were originally intended.
	The Law Commission's report that laid the foundations for the 1971 Act also went through the various permutations of strict liability. The application of strict liability under section 2 of the Act has led to much confusion and criticism by the courts, despite the attempts to clarify matters during its passage through Parliament in the early 1970s. There have been a number of cases in which decisions have been made under section 2, and in paragraph 9 of the Mirvahedy  v. Henley judgment, Lord Nicholls stated:
	"Unfortunately the language of section 2(2) is itself opaque. In this instance the parliamentary draftsman's zeal for brevity has led to obscurity. Over the years section 2(2) has attracted much judicial obloquy."

Bill Wiggin: The Bill does not just apply to riding schools. The point of the proposed change is that it would apply to every type of animal and all unforeseen circumstances. That is why the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who mentioned insurance premiums, was wrong. It is the size of the risk that causes premiums to rise. Having provisions that apply only to riding schools is contrary to what the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) said in an earlier intervention about the damage that a dog could do. I do not wish to be harsh on him, but he might have contradicted himself in his interventions.
	Section 2(2) of the 1971 Act created the view, which the Mirvahedy case turned into a legal precedent, that if an incident involves an animal, regardless of the circumstances, it cannot be considered an accident. The animal's owner will always be strictly liable. A number of passages in the Law Lords' decision were devoted to that point, and in particular to "normal" and "abnormal" characteristics and circumstances. Despite their decision, the Law Lords noted the controversy surrounding the case and the test in section 2(2)(b) of whether strict liability occurs.
	Lord Slynn of Hadley, who allowed the appeal by the Henleys, commented in paragraph 50:
	"It is not surprising that different Courts in cases before the present one should have taken difference views as to the meaning of section 2(2)(b) of the Act; nor that different views should emerge in the present case. The meaning of that part of the sub-section is not at all obvious or clear."
	Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, who dismissed the appeal by the Henleys, similarly remarked in paragraph 31:
	"In common with all other judges who have had to wrestle with this question, I have found that the tortuous language of section 2(2)(b) renders its intended meaning peculiarly difficult to ascertain."
	Arguing that the subsection was an anomaly for Parliament and the legislative process to resolve, he stated:
	"It may be said that the loss should fall on the person who chooses to keep an animal which is known to be dangerous in some circumstances. He is aware of the risks involved, and he should bear the risks. On the other hand, it can be said that, negligence apart, everyone must take the risks associated with the ordinary characteristics of animals commonly kept in this country. These risks are part of the normal give and take of life in this country...These considerations, and other arguments of this nature, are matters for parliament. They are not matters for this House acting in its judicial capacity."
	As legislators, we have a duty to set out and create laws that have clear meanings and to outline the circumstances whereby blame can be apportioned to one party or another.
	Section 2 of the 1971 Act needed to be changed and the Bill takes the debate forward. I welcome the fact that the Government have indicated their support for that change and clarification of the law. It is very rare for me to welcome anything that the Government do, although I am fond of the Minister, whom I shadow, but in this case I think it excellent that the Government have supported the Bill and its clarification of the law. I also note that the consultation carried out by the former Minister, the hon. Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner), showed that 26 out of 29 respondents favoured amending the Animals Act 1971.

Bill Wiggin: I was not aware of that and it is helpful that my hon. Friend has put that on the record.
	It is important that the legislation be amended because the impact of the Mirvahedy case has ricocheted beyond the parties in that case and is having a devastating effect on the nation's riding schools. The precedent set by the case implies that wherever a case involves an animal, the owner will almost certainly be liable for any accidents that take place. That judgment has led to a massive rise in insurance premiums. In Pembrokeshire, the Llandwana stables saw its insurance premiums rise from £2,000 to £6,000 after an incident that was beyond its control. Others have seen their premiums rise from £858 in 2001 to £7,051 and some figures have suggested average premium increases of about 70 per cent.
	In the past four years, the number of riding schools has dropped by about a quarter from 2,500 down to 1,850. Not all of that fall in numbers can be directly attributed to the rising insurance costs, but it does remain a factor. It is another burden placed on a small and predominantly rural business, and it would be a great loss to our country, especially to rural areas, if riding school numbers continued to fall. Riding is enjoyed by 2.4 million people each year, and it is estimated that double that number have an active interest in the industry. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire echoed those figures when he opened the debate. We have a world class equestrian team, but where will our future champions be able to train if, by the 2012 Olympics in London, there are only a handful of riding schools left?
	There are, of course, good reasons why the Animals Act 1971 is in place, and the legal principle behind it is a fair one. It is designed to protect people from dangerous animals—something that we all agree is important—and to ensure that cases involving the owners of animals that can pose a danger to the public and cause injuries or damages are handled and accommodated in a suitable manner with no risk to the public. That principle is fair, which is why the Act does not need amending in its entirety.
	It is the job of this House to legislate clearly and to reflect the needs of our constituents. The choice before us for the future is very stark. Do we think that Mr. Mirvahedy should have been able to claim damages after being hit by a horse or that, provided all reasonable steps had been taken, he should not have been eligible to claim? Because we are generally well-meaning people, we probably want it both ways. Sadly, in no small part due to the litigious nature of our society, we cannot have it both ways. The reality is that we as legislators must work to close the gap between the letter of law and justice. That means that we must allow people the freedom— [Interruption.]

Bill Wiggin: No, I think that the hon. Gentleman has got that completely wrong. It is clear from his interventions all morning that he has been struggling to understand the Bill's difficulties, although I have some sympathy with where he is coming from. Perhaps this is the best way to put it: if we really think that the owner is responsible for all his animal's actions at any time, we should be legislating to insist on proper, compulsory third-party insurance. I do not believe, however, that that is what we as a nation believe. I do not think that our constituents would want every owner to have a third-party insurance policy for their pet, irrespective of its size. The Mirvahedy case was a very clear example of where the owner could not have done anything to have prevented the accident. The question we face therefore is whether or not we should insist on insurance. If we do, we should not be amending the Animals Act 1971 by the Bill. Indeed, if the hon. Member for Hendon believes that, he should bring in his own Bill to insist on that. That, however, was never the intention, so the hon. Gentleman's characterisation of my position is incorrect. He could paint himself into corner and create the scenario that he mentioned in his intervention, but that would be wrong. I believe that we need to defend the right to take some degree of risk.
	Let me provide a small example. When I took my children to learn to ride, my youngest child was not allowed to do so because it was impossible to insure him. As his parent, I think that that should be my decision, not the decision of the riding school's insurance company. However, we are where we are, and the Bill will release the riding school of that decision and give it to me as a parent. The hon. Member for Hendon may think that that is wrong, but the bottom line is that that is what parental responsibility is all about. We have to be careful not to fall too easily into what I would call a nanny state solution; we should rather give people the freedom to do what they want to do.

Andrew Dismore: Let us take the example of the horse that shied with an inexperienced rider. Let us suppose that a young child had been walking with her family in the countryside, coming the other way along the bridle path, and as the horse shied, it kicked the child and inflicted severe brain damage, and the child was crippled and dependent on their family. Ultimately, I suppose that the state would pay the cost ever after. My argument is that under the current law there probably would not be liability, but I think that there should be.

Jonathan R Shaw: I must take us back to where I began. It is essential that we understand that this is clarifying the law. We do not want the current set of circumstances to continue, whereby in any situation someone can be liable for the way an animal acts despite their acting responsibly and making the best endeavours to ensure that the animal does not cause injury. This is a clarification of the law.
	The Government also contend that the ability to claim compensation in the types of cases I have been referring to is not fully in line with the liability regimes applying in comparable situations where injury is caused by things other than animals; and the outcome of compensation claims in such cases involving animals remains uncertain under the current legislation, even allowing for the extension of strict liability into this territory following Mirvahedy, and the recent appeal court verdict in McKenny  v. Foster.
	In passing, I would like to draw special attention to the McKenny  v . Foster case, not only because it clearly demonstrates that, despite the assumptions made by some, the current situation relating to compensation for innocent parties injured in accidents involving animals is far from clear or certain, but because the bizarre facts in the case clearly demonstrate how impossible it is to predict, and therefore protect against, the behaviour of animals. As many Members will know, this case revolved around a cow that was standing stationary in the road when it was hit by a car. The hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire described the offence, whereby the cow, which was separated from its calf, managed to jump not only a six-bar field gate into a farm lane, but also a 12 ft cattle grid at the end of the lane. The courts, sensibly, in this case held that the behavioural characteristic that the cow had exhibited was not the normal agitation resulting from being separated from its calf. The hon. Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin), as an experienced farmer, will know that very well, as, I am sure, will the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire, who is no longer present.
	The cow behaved in an extraordinary manner, and the ruling confirmed that, notwithstanding Mirvahedy, not all accidents involving animals entail strict liability under section 2(2) of the Animals Act. Nevertheless, the outcome of this case does not lessen the need to clarify section 2(2), and it is worth noting that the judges in McKenny referred to the ambiguity in section 2(2) and the conflicting interpretations of it. The Government therefore believe that it is in everybody's interests to clarify the law, so that everybody—owners, riders, businesses, victims, lawyers, insurers and the courts—can be certain where strict liability applies and where it does not.

Jonathan R Shaw: Yes, the dog nicked my speech—it ate my homework.
	The Government believe that it is in everybody's interests to clarify the law. Their position, therefore, is that they accept that the wording of section 2(2)(b) is unclear, creates uncertainty and causes problems for animal keepers, victims and the courts. They do not think that the framers of the original Act intended for strict liability to apply in all situations where animals caused harm or damage. As noted, if they had, the Government think that section 2 would have been very different, and that section 2(2)(b) would have been entirely unnecessary. The Government think that the intention behind section 2(2) was to encourage the keeper of a potentially dangerous animal to take particular precautions when there was a real and identifiable risk of damage occurring. To this end, they imposed strict liability on the keeper when the animal in question was known to present such a risk, either permanently because of its temperament, or temporarily because of the particular circumstances applying at the time. The Government consider that the majority view in the Mirvahedy judgment went beyond this, by confirming that strict liability can apply in a wider range of circumstances, including those where there was no particular reason to expect that the animal presented a particular risk or that the circumstances that might prompt the animal to cause damage existed at the time.
	Let me now come on to the points raised in this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West talked about injuries sustained through letterboxes while delivering the leaflets that were ultimately successful in electing him to this House.  [Interruption.] The shadow deputy Chief Whip says not to deliver leaflets, but my hon. Friend is a campaigner who looks after his constituents. We are all familiar with stories about getting fingers nipped by dogs as we put leaflets through doors. Although we do not yet have such a law, many hon. Members will have had conversations with their campaigners about the need for a law on having a certain size of letterbox, on having no names on houses, only numbers, and on ensuring that there is a cage behind the letterbox.

Andrew Dismore: First, I should remind that House that I was a personal injury lawyer for 20 years before I was a Member of Parliament. I have maintained my practising certificate and am a consultant with my law firm, although I am not taking any cases. This job is more than a full-time one, as everybody in the House is aware. As a result of that interest, I have, of course, kept a close eye on what happens in the personal injury law world.
	I obviously congratulate, as other hon. Members have done, the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb). He has spotted an issue and run hard with it in several different ways. He has been very persistent, and I congratulate him on that, as well as on the good humour with which he has presented his Bill today. He has engaged constructively with me in debate. Unfortunately, as he knows, we have come to different conclusions on this issue, but that is not a reflection on the way in which he has approached it. I am sorry that he has not been able to persuade me, nor I him, but I hope to be able to influence the House's discussion of the Bill.
	My concern is that the hon. Gentleman has focused on only one side of the story, as my various interventions have probably revealed. We have heard about the support for the Bill from country landowners, riding stables and many people involved on that side of the fence. We have heard about how the insurance industry, including the Association of British Insurers, is right behind this Bill—well, to coin a phrase, "They would be, wouldn't they?" My concern is for those on the other side of the fence. They are the people whom I used to represent when I was in practice—the injured, the victims, the people who are hurt through no fault of their own. People can be going along minding their own business and their car is hit by an animal belonging to someone else. They are run off the road and, as happened in the Mirvahedy case, they can sustain very serious injuries.
	I am concerned about the young child, out with their family, walking along the bridle path enjoying a sunny Sunday afternoon's stroll through the countryside, who is suddenly hit by a runaway horse, is severely injured and becomes a paraplegic. They will then be dependent on their family and on the state. I am concerned about the girl playing in the park who is unexpectedly attacked by a dog, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Mahmood) suggested, and has her face ripped off, but is left with no compensation. I am concerned about everybody who is injured by someone else's animal. That may be because that person has not trained their animal properly, or looked after it properly or fenced it properly. It may be because of that person's negligence, or it may not. It may be because of some characteristic of the animal, or it may not.
	In any case, I believe—and this is the bull point of the debate—that if someone owns an animal that has the potential to hurt somebody else, it is far easier for the owner to take out insurance against what may happen as a result. Taking out insurance is also the responsible thing to do. If someone owns a horse, or a riding stable, they can take out insurance. If someone owns a dog, they can take out insurance. Indeed, their household policy may already cover them, as a standard term, for injuries caused by their domestic pets. But the passer-by, the car driver who only has third party insurance, the child on the bridle path, or the little girl playing on the swings who gets attacked by the pit bull cannot insure against that risk, because they do not even know that it exists. The net result is that they end up uncompensated and their family have to look after them for the rest of their lives. That also involves the state, because if someone is severely injured, they will become dependent on benefits and the state will have to pay.
	It is a luxury to own a dog. Before I was elected, I had a dog. Unfortunately, she died of old age in the autumn of 1996, and our present lifestyle would make it difficult to own another, given the hours that we work. She was a wonderful animal, and she would not have bitten anybody, but she would growl and snarl a bit. I was responsible for her behaviour, and I recognise that fact. Similarly, if people own a horse, they should be responsible for injuries that it may cause. That is self-evident, and if most people were asked the question in that way, they would answer in the affirmative. Most people would recognise that they can insure over the things that they own, but they cannot insure over things and risks that they do not own. That is the fundamental difference between us today. When I put that question to the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire and my hon. Friend the Minister, the problem was that everyone skirted round the answer. Nobody would say, "Yes, I am prepared to see that person go uncompensated and dependent on their family and the state." Nobody was prepared to say that in absolute terms.

Andrew Dismore: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I had finished my point, so the hon. Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin) need not have made his point of order.
	I am a member of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers—I am classed as an academic member rather than a practising member, which means that my subs are a bit lower. I spoke to representatives of that organisation this morning. They had not heard of the Bill until the hon. Gentleman contacted them—I believe that he made contact only at my suggestion when he held his little meeting the other week. They said, without endorsing the Bill, that they need to examine it and discuss it with their members. If I know the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, it will make similar criticisms to those that I have expressed.
	The Bill overlooks the statutory protection in section 5 of the 1971 Act. That came out in some of our earlier discussions. When I made the point, it seemed from people's reactions that they had never heard of or looked at section 5. It provides a significant defence for claims in either the Mirvahedy circumstances or, more frequently, in the riding school cases.
	Section 5 of the 1971 Act states:
	"A person is not liable under sections 2 to 4"—
	we are concerned with section 2—
	"of this Act for any damage which is due wholly to the fault of the person suffering it... A person is not liable under section 2... for any damage suffered by a person who has voluntarily accepted the risk thereof."
	Most of the cases involving people in riding schools—those who have been trained to ride a horse or have hired the horse—have failed on the basic principle of volenti non fit injuria, which is an old common law principle given statutory force in section 5. A defence, therefore, exists in many cases.
	There is also protection under section 5 for liability in respect of a trespasser if it is proved that
	"the animal was not kept there for the protection of persons or property; or... that keeping it there for that purpose was not unreasonable."
	That is important because the debate so far has focused on horses, but we know from the statistics that far more accidents are caused by dogs, including guard dogs. Although the debate has focused on the equine, we should not forget the canine. Section 5 of the 1971 Act provides a defence for many of the cases that trouble the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire. He should bear that in mind in our debate.
	The hon. Gentleman made great play of insurance. The Library briefing states that there has been a rise in insurance premiums and mentions riding schools whose insurance premiums have increased to more than £7,000. It also states that the cost of annual membership of the Racehorse Owners Association has increased from £165 to £195. For someone who owns a racehorse, £30 more probably constitutes small change down the back of the sofa. The hon. Gentleman should not pray that in aid. In his press release that announced the Bill, he said that the existing legal position was grossly unfair to responsible animal owners and that rural businesses were placed at risk by the huge increase in premiums since the House of Lords judgment. He also said that millions of people who enjoy horse riding face extra costs as a result.
	When the hon. Gentleman introduced the Bill, he said that his clarification of the law through the removal of strict liability would affect only a small number of cases. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary also said that. The Library briefing cites an article by barristers Susan Rodway QC and James Todd, entitled "Mirvahedy—Three Years On". They report that insurers are insisting on higher standards of risk management in the form of record keeping, risk assessment and compliance with local licensing regimes. The article asks why the predicted explosion in strict liability cases has not happened. Indeed, there has not been a huge increase in cases or risk. There has been a tiny number of cases. Some may be high value cases—Mirvahedy was a high value case because of the extent of the injuries—there is no doubt about that, but they are a tiny number. If we average out the insurance risk even of high-value multi-million pound claims, of which there are very few, over the cost for the whole industry, that does not significantly increase the insurance liability risk. That is what insurers are about.
	I asked the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire in an intervention—it was a tongue-in-cheek intervention, but an intervention none the less—whether he had received any indication from the insurance industry that it would reduce premiums if the Bill went through. Obviously he could not answer that question, never mind consider the 50 per cent. reduction that we can infer from the figures in the Library briefing that have been quoted in this debate. The fact is that insurers do not reduce their premiums. I have yet to hear of any circumstance in which insurance companies charged less because something changed. A bit like the gas board and the cost of oil prices, insurance companies are quite happy to put premiums up, but very slow to bring them down.
	That is the simple nature of the insurance industry. If the hon. Gentleman's Bill goes through, I would be happy to have a little gentleman's wager with him—of a drink in the Strangers Bar, say, or whatever he chooses—that insurance premiums would not go down. I know for certain that premiums would not come down and I think that, realistically, he knows that, too.

Stephen Pound: I do not share my hon. Friend's gifts of clairvoyance, but for a moment I peered into my mind and saw a future private Member's Bill of his own, on requirements for insurance companies, and I anticipate being here on a Friday morning to support him in that. However, does he agree that the Mirvahedy case was essentially a dispute between two insurance companies? We should be asking whether the Bill that the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb) has brought forward would make such disputes less likely or whether it would encourage more insurers to widen their pool of insured people prior to its becoming a putative Act?

Andrew Dismore: I am happy to accept what the hon. Gentleman says about Ms Rodway, but I am talking about cause and effect. Yes, insurance premiums have risen, but why? Is it because of Mirvahedy or other factors? My argument in response to his case is that when one analyses the facts, one sees that Mirvahedy can logically have had only a minor impact on premiums, if it has had one at all.
	The growth of insurance premiums is the hon. Gentleman's key point, but I believe that the insurance industry has made a general risk assessment of its exposure to liability in respect of animals, and particularly horses. It has recognised that there are serious concerns irrespective of Mirvahedy, so it is clamping down on riding establishments that are not doing things properly. I think that we would all agree that risk assessments and appropriate record keeping are good, and I am sure that we would agree that compliance with local licensing regimes is good. That is why the insurance industry is insisting on those things. I sure that premiums have risen for those who have not been following those procedures, who present a much bigger risk than the off-chance of Mirvahedy-type claim. That is why insurance premiums have gone up.
	There has been a general trend for the insurance industry to cherry-pick and to make it difficult for small business, not just in relation to claims on animal matters. That has been a fact of insurance life for quite some time. The timing of the Mirvahedy judgment and increases in insurance premiums may have coincided, but that is indeed a coincidence rather than being due to cause and effect to any great degree.

Khalid Mahmood: As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson) and I mentioned earlier with particular reference to injuries caused by dogs, many people in urban conurbations do not insure themselves against that risk. Will the Bill make a real difference to my constituents? If, for example, someone campaigning for me in the constituency and dropping leaflets through the door has their finger ripped off when they put their hand through the letter box or someone enjoying a day in the park with the family gets set on by a dog, causing serious injuries, how will the Bill assist them if the owner of the animal has no insurance?

Andrew Dismore: Of course, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	We need to examine the law of negligence, and the starting point for that is the excellent text of the 17th edition of "Winfield and Jolowicz on Tort", which sets out the present position in short form. Chapter 16 states:
	"At common law a person might be liable for damage caused by an animal on one or more of three distinct grounds, namely, ordinary liability in tort, liability under the strict scienter rule"—
	that is what this is about, although I will not go down that route because you told me not to, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so we will not know what the scienter rule is—
	"and liability for cattle trespass."
	I am pleased to say that we are not concerned with that today, although it involves another interesting list of cases.
	The text goes on to state:
	"Liability for an animal may be based on negligence",
	and cites these words:
	"Quite apart from the liability imposed upon the owner of animals or the person having control of them by reason of knowledge of their propensities, there is the ordinary duty of a person to take care that either his animal or his chattel is not put to such a use as is likely to injure his neighbour—the ordinary duty to take care in the cases put upon negligence."
	In other words, the ordinary rules of negligence apply, plus the scienter rule. That means that a person who knows that an animal is potentially dangerous is liable even if he is not negligent in dealing with it. That is what those earlier cases determined. If the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire gets his way, we will turn the clock back and return the law to how it was before the Animals Act.
	The cases and issues relating to animals fall into two categories. There are animals known as "ferae naturae" and animals known as "tame animals"—there is another Latin phrase that I may come to later. Section 2(1) of the Act deals with the law applying to wild animals, while section 2(2) deals with that applying to domestic animals. The leading case in this connection is Behrens  v. Bertram Mills Circus 1954. It took place in the days before political correctness, so I hope the House will bear with me when I relate the facts, which are recorded as follows:
	"The plaintiffs, husband and wife, were both midgets and during the Christmas season in...1953, were on exhibition in a booth in a funfair adjoining the defendants' circus."
	At the circus the defendants kept six female Burmese elephants that performed in the circus. Now, the problem was that the midgets' manager had a dog, and when the elephants went past, the dog spooked the elephants, and the midgets were trampled. The issue before the court was whether the elephants were domestic elephants or wild elephants.  [Laughter.] I know it sounds funny, but it is actually quite important in the context of the principles behind the Bill. If the court had concluded that the elephants were domesticated and therefore not ferae naturae, section 2 of the Act and the amendments would apply to them. But the court concluded that, as a matter of law, all elephants were dangerous. It made no difference that the particular elephant in question was a highly trained Burmese elephant and, in fact, tame,
	"for the harmfulness of an offending animal was to be judged, not by reference to its particular training and habits, but by reference to the general habits of the species to which it belonged."
	The judgment stated:
	"The elephant Bullu is in fact no more dangerous than a cow; she reacted in the same way as a cow would do to the irritation of a small dog; if perhaps her bulk made her capable of doing more damage, her high training enabled her to be more swiftly checked."
	However, the judge also said:
	"But I am compelled to assess the defendants' liability in this case in just the same way as I would assess it if they had loosed a wild elephant into the funfair."
	What must be determined in such cases is whether an animal is a wild or a domestic animal in the first place. The debate has focused on horses, but the amendments that the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire seeks to introduce extend far beyond them to cover other animals.
	The earliest case relating to animals going astray, and the one that set the scene, is Tillett  v. Ward. The consequences in this case could well be the consequences of the hon. Gentleman's Bill, which seeks to return to the law to its former state. This case is not about a bull in a china shop, but about an ox in an ironmonger's. It occurred in 1882. An ox belonging to the defendant was being driven through the streets of a country town, went into the plaintiff's shop, which adjoined the street, through an open doorway and damaged his goods, and there was no negligence on the part of the persons in charge of the ox. The ox was being driven along a street called Ironmonger street, which is a coincidence as the case involved an ironmonger's shop. The ox went along the pavement and into the shop and did a lot of damage; it took three quarters of an hour to get it out. There was no evidence of it being of a vicious or unruly nature normally, which was also the situation in the Mirvahedy case. There was nothing exceptional in its temper or character making it unsafe to drive it through the streets. The result in that case was that the shop owner, Mr. Tillett, went uncompensated. That would be the result in such cases if we were to return to the situation prior to the Animals Act, consequent upon the Bill of the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire.
	There are also plenty of cases involving horses. There is a case that is of particular relevance to the principles of negligence that would be in place if the hon. Gentleman were to get his way—the Bradley  v. Thompson Court of Appeal case of 1913. In the course of his employment, a workman was killed by the kick of a horse belonging to a third party whose servant had brought it on to the employee's premises and left it unattended. The court came to the conclusion that it was not in the ordinary course of things that a horse not known to be vicious should kick a man. Such cases are of relevance in respect of the Mirvahedy judgment. In these circumstances, it was decided that there was no negligence at common law. The hon. Gentleman is contending that in such circumstances people such as Mr. Bradley should go uncompensated.
	There is another case involving a pony bolting and damaging a draper's shop in Marylebone. The defendant's pony and milk van went through the window and damaged a lot of the stock; the case occurred in 1923 and the shop was called Gayler and Pope Ltd. The court looked at the circumstances and considered the issue of negligence, and came to the conclusion that for injury caused by horses or cattle to property on or adjoining a highway, the owner is not liable in the absence of negligence or a wilful intention on his part. Again, there would be strict liability under the Mirvahedy criteria in those circumstances, but under the Bill they would no longer apply.

Stephen Pound: I am fascinated by the legal journey—if not marathon—on which my hon. Friend is taking us, but let us back to first principles, to borrow an expression he has used. The Law Commission report, which I see as the foundation of the Animals Act 1971, is the basis of his comments. That report addresses the issue of responsibility on the part of the owner. How does my hon. Friend think that that precautionary principle would be aided and encouraged if the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire were successful?

Justine Greening: The hon. Gentleman cannot really blame my hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire for that; he was not even born then.

Andrew Dismore: That may be true, but it is a dangerous wild animal according to the 1976 Act. I think that its drafters erred on the side of caution; the Act includes reptilian animals and spiders as well as the hippopotamus, the wild boar and the giraffe. I certainly do not think that giraffes are particularly dangerous—not that I have great experience of them. The point is that the 1976 Act would be a far better way of dealing with the issue addressed under section 2(1) of the 1971 Act.
	However, we have to see how the 1971 Act has been applied and what difference it would make post-Mirvahedy. The leading case on the issue was presided over by Lord Denning. It concerned a guard dog. The defendant was the occupier of a breaker's yard in the east end. The yard was locked up and the defendant's untrained Alsatian was turned loose to deter intruders. One night, an associate of the defendant, who had access to a key, unlocked the side gate and, accompanied by the plaintiff, who knew about the dog, entered the yard and the dog attacked the plaintiff. Lord Denning uses some wonderful language in his judgment. He stressed that the yard was in the east end of London,
	"where persons of the roughest type come and go. It was a scrap-yard, true, but scrap-yards, like building sites, often contain much valuable property. It was deserted at night and at weekends. If there was no protection, thieves would drive up in a lorry and remove the scrap with no one to see them or to stop them. The only reasonable way of protecting the place was to have a guard dog. True it was a fierce dog. But why not? A gentle dog would be no good. The thieves would soon make friends with him. It seems to me that it was very reasonable—or, at any rate, not unreasonable—for the defendant to keep this dog there."
	He goes on to find no liability in relation to the plaintiff. He called it, "The case of the barmaid bitten by a big dog."
	I believe that such cases would be caught by the Mirvahedy decision, if they had not been caught previously. Lord Denning went on to refer to the Guard Dogs Act 1975, which was new at the time. He made the point that the answer lay in that measure. However, he did so without reflecting on the fact that it does not create civil liability. I cannot remember who mentioned the Guard Dogs Act earlier—certainly someone from the far side. Although that measure is clear about what people should do—guard dogs should not be permitted without a warning sign, the dog has to be under a handler's control or otherwise secured—if that does not happen and the dog gets loose or someone is bitten, no liability arises under it. Liability arises under the Animals Act. That is why section 2 is so important.
	There are many cases involving dogs. For example, there is the case of the border collie and the problem of dogs that have a particular propensity to bite people who carry bags. There is also the problem of dogs that are known to attack other dogs adopting people. The most recent case involving a scrap yard owner was of a loose Alsatian, which was not a guard dog. Liability was found because the dog was a stray that had been adopted without being properly examined.
	The only case to succeed was Curtis  v. Betts, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North mentioned. It concerned a bull mastiff, which bit a 10-year-old child neighbour. The dog was being put in a car, the child came along to pat the dog and the dog went for him. Section 2(2) of the Animals Act is clear and the case succeeded. The court applied section 2(2)(b), which requires the plaintiff to show that
	"the likelihood of the damage or of its being severe was due to the characteristics of the animal which are not normally found...except at particular times or in particular circumstances".
	The "particular circumstance" in that case was that the dog was guarding its territory, which was taken to be the back of the Land Rover into which it was being loaded. The child was badly injured and the 11 or 12 stone bull mastiff was responsible.
	The Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 was mentioned earlier. We know that it is problematic. Again, it does not provide an answer to cases of dog bites. It is a criminal offence to keep a dangerous dog, which is defined in several different ways by reference to breed. We know about pit bulls and the Japanese tosa, but the Act also refers to any dog that appears to have been bred for fighting or that has the characteristics—my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North made a point earlier about defining characteristics—of a type bred for that purpose. The problem with the Dangerous Dogs Act is that it, too, fails to provide for civil liability. Therefore, the difficulty is that there is no additional civil liability in those circumstances, other than that provided for by section 2(2) of the 1971 Act.
	There are also cases involving horses that predated Mirvahedy. The first—Haimes  v. Watson, in October 1980—had almost exactly the same facts:
	"The plaintiff was riding his horse along the near side of a country road...the horse moved across the road and the defendant collided with it broadside."
	The question was whether the horse or the rider was responsible. The court came to the conclusion that
	"there was no absolute duty on a rider of a horse who rode it properly along the highway to prevent it going out of control"
	and that
	"the fact that the horse had moved...broadside...called for an explanation",
	but
	"the explanation...given, ie, that it had shied and that"
	the rider
	"had temporarily lost control of it, had been adequate to negative any possible inference of negligence that might otherwise have been drawn".
	I raise that case, which might have succeeded under the Mirvahedy principle if it had gone to the House of Lords, which it did not—it went only to the Court of Appeal—because if the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire got his way, it would have been decided the other way. The plaintiff—in fact, the defendant, because there was a counter-claim—would then have recovered compensation. It is perhaps a pity that that case did not go to the House of Lords, because Mr. Haimes lost out as a result.
	The other case that is almost on all fours with Mirvahedy is Jaundrill  v. Gillett, in January 1996. In that case the horses were
	"maliciously released on to the road where they panicked and galloped into an oncoming car".
	Those are almost exactly the same facts as the Mirvahedy case. The notes continued:
	"The horses had escaped from a field where they had been kept by the defendant. It was common ground that some malicious intruder had opened a gate and driven the horses on to the highway."
	We do not know how the horses got out in Mirvahedy, but the inference was always that an intruder had spooked them. The conclusion drawn was that there was no liability on the owners of the horse. Again, Jaundrill  v. Gillett was a Court of Appeal judgment predating Mirvahedy. In those circumstances—this is exactly the sort of case that I am arguing about—the victim of the accident was uncompensated. If that case had been decided under the 1971 Act post-Mirvahedy, however, he would have been compensated.
	We come to the Mirvahedy judgment, which is the root cause of all our ills today. The headnote for the case summarises the position pretty clearly—this is why I think the law does not require clarification—saying that the keeper of a non-dangerous animal is
	"strictly liable for damage"
	or injury
	"caused by the animal when the animal's behaviour",
	although not normal behaviour for animals of that species, is nevertheless normal behaviour for the species in the circumstances, such as a horse bolting when sufficiently alarmed. Since the actions of the claimant had been caused by the defendants' horses behaving in an unusual way, caused by their panic, they were liable to him.
	The leading judgment of Lord Nicholls ended by saying:
	"The fact that an animal's behaviour, although not normal behaviour for animals of that species, was nevertheless normal behaviour for the species in the particular circumstances does not take the case outside section 2(2)(b)...Horses are large and heavy animals. But it was not this innate physical characteristic of the defendants' horses which caused the road accident. The horses escaped because they were terrified. They were still not behaving ordinarily when they careered over the main road, crashing into vehicles rather than the other way about."
	Lord Nicholls also referred to the Court of Appeal judgment, saying that Lady Justice Hale had
	"concluded that it was precisely because they were behaving in this unusual way caused by their panic that the road accident took place...That conclusion, on the evidence, seems to me irrefutable and to be fatal to the case of"
	the defendants. That is why he dismissed their appeal.
	That law is pretty clear and I do not really understand why the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire or my hon. Friend the Minister have suggested that it is not. The issue has been tried in a series of cases since, some of which my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North referred to in an intervention by citing the Library briefing, and the vast bulk were lost. Galton  v. Moorcroft, for instance, involved a horse on display at Windsor, but failed under the defence under section 5(2) of the 1971—the volenti defence, which was referred to earlier.
	In the case of Clark  v. Bowlt, the claimant's vehicle was slowly passing a horse going in the same direction. The horse jumped about a bit and moved into the road just as the car passed. Nobody could avoid a collision and there were no exceptional characteristics. The accident was a mishap, and Mr. Clark went uncompensated.
	We heard earlier about the McKenny  v. Foster case—the escaped cow case. I think that the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire said that it went to the Court of Appeal last week. That case, too, failed, so we can rely on the courts to adopt some common sense. In the 2006 Clark  v. Bowlt case, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North, referred in an intervention, the claimant was driving along and minding his own business. He slowed his vehicle to pass a horse being ridden by the defendant on a narrow verge, in the same direction. As he passed the horse, it made an uncontrolled movement into the road and hit the front of the car, and both parties sustained injuries. There was no negligence involved, and it was found that the horse had no unusual characteristic, as was the case in Mirvahedy. It was found that
	"a propensity occasionally to move otherwise than as directed could not be described as a characteristic of an animal".
	The characteristic was the horse's weight, which was normal, so the requirements of section 2(2)(b) had not been satisfied. That is another post-Mirvahedy case in which the courts came to a sensible conclusion. Personally, I would like the law to be different and include absolute liability in such circumstances, but unfortunately that is not what we are discussing today. I am simply arguing for the status quo, which would at least mean that some cases that have failed would have succeeded.
	The Plum  v. Berry and Berry (T/A Chorley Equestrian Centre) case also involved as experienced rider. Her horse went into a gallop and threw her, and the case failed because of a defence under section 5(2) that she had voluntarily accepted the risk by riding the horse. The final case that I wish to mention relates to a dog.

Stephen Pound: I am sure that the whole House is grateful for that information, which will come as a considerable surprise to the leader writers of the  Daily Mail.
	 Does my hon. Friend think that the reason why the specialist legal practitioners who responded to the DEFRA consultation that took place 18 months ago concluded that Mirvahedy  v. Henley created a satisfactory situation is relevant to the point that he has just made?

Andrew Dismore: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, and he may well be right. Obviously it is far better for cases to be settled than fought, but serious cases will tend at least to be litigated, even if no judgment follows. The figures that I gave earlier showing a decline in the number of High Court cases across the board are symptomatic. If what he suggests were correct, the insurance industry would have produced very detailed briefings for today's debate, which would presumably have contained a lengthy list of all the cases that had been settled that it considered to be unfair on the basis of the Mirvahedy principle. The dog that did not bark—an apt way of putting it, in the context of the Animals Act—is the insurance industry, which has produced no evidence of actual post-Mirvahedy cases that it considers to be unfair, as opposed to general speculation that there might be a few of them of which we have not heard. The insurance industry is very good at carrying out research, and when debates such as this have taken place in the past it has always brought chapter and verse to the table. It has not done so today, and I think it extremely unlikely that we will see any evidence of those cases.
	Paragraph 17 of the explanatory notes, headed "European convention on human rights", states:
	"The Bill amends existing legislation to clarify the circumstances in which strict liability can apply to the owners of animals that cause harm or damage. Nothing in the Bill directly affects the rights or obligations of any person in such a way as to engage their Convention rights."
	The Joint Committee on Human Rights would have an awful lot to say about that bald assertion. In our annual report this year, we produced a coruscating paragraph in which we pointed out that far too many Departments make such bald assertions of compliance without analysing the facts. An assertion does not constitute justification for a statement of compliance with the Human Rights Act 1998, and I cannot take this assertion as a proper certificate for those purposes.
	We need only refer to the Human Rights Act to see that human rights principles may well be engaged. For a start, there is the right to life—the most important of human rights—which is enshrined in article 2 of the convention. It is fundamental in this context. The state has a positive duty to protect the right to life, and the weakening of civil liability will work against that positive duty. There is also the right to protection of private property, which may also be engaged. The Bill deals with not just personal injury but property damage, and that principle too could be engaged. The same applies to the right to protection of private and family life, which is laid down in article 8. So I am certainly not convinced that the Bill is compliant with the Human Rights Act and the convention.
	The Bill's promoter says that the intention is to return to the common law of negligence. I do not think that the Bill does that. It offers one sensible amendment in relation to damage by substituting for section 2(2)(b) of the 1971 Act provision that
	"the damage was due to an unusual or conditional characteristic of the animal".
	That is a helpful clarification. However, its changes to paragraph (c) are unhelpful, and the remainder of the Bill does not achieve the objectives sought.
	The explanatory notes state:
	"The intention is to allow the courts to distinguish between a continuing, generalised risk that the keeper knows may occur at some time (e.g. a horse may shy at a plastic bag if one blows in the wind near it) but does not know when it may occur, and a heightened, specific risk over a specific period of time that the keeper knows will increase the possibility of the animal displaying dangerous behaviour during that period (e.g. a cow with calves, or a horse in a field next to a shoot)."
	That is not a return to the original common law, as we have learned from references to previous cases. Let us look at the definition of unusual characteristics in the commentary in the explanatory notes:
	"Unusual characteristics are defined as those that are not shared by the species generally, while conditional characteristics are defined as those that are shared generally by the species, but only in particular circumstances".
	The hon. Gentleman has rightly drawn attention to the two different limbs of his new definition: the unusual characteristics and the conditional characteristics. However, I do not think that that would add a great deal in the scheme of things. We are dealing with a small number of cases, and I think we should leave well alone.
	There are other complications. I an unsure whether the hon. Gentleman intends to include the same definition of knowledge as that in section 2. I am sure he will want to reply to the debate, and perhaps when he does so he will clarify the position in relation to constructive knowledge and say whether the same test would continue to apply.
	There is also an issue in relation to the limitation period. The normal limitation period for personal injury claims is three years, but a 2002 case—Clarke  v. Barber—changed the principles in relation to limitation, and that is important in terms of liability under the Animals Act. In that case, the top of the claimant's index finger was bitten off by a dog, but the claim was brought three years and nine months after the incident. The limitation period was thought to be three years, under section 11 of the Limitation Act 1980, so, unfortunately, the case fell outside its provisions. However, the court came to the conclusion that a special six-year limitation period would apply because of the particular requirements of strict liability under the 1971 Act. The court concluded:
	"The cause of action under the 1971 Act was one of strict liability".
	That is the section 2(2) point. It went on to say that
	"therefore once a claimant had established the three requirements under s.2(2) of the 1971 Act relating to non dangerous species"
	—in this case a dog, but it could have been a horse—
	"then liability followed. The 1971 Act did not impose a duty of restraint or duty to take reasonable care and therefore could not be interpreted as a claim for breach of duty. Therefore a six year limitation period applied."
	If the hon. Gentleman is going to start messing around with section 2(2), perhaps he will tell us what the implications would be for the limitation period under that section. What will be the implications for the six-year limitation period relating to strict liability if he gets his way and removes that strict liability under section 2(2)(b)?

Brooks Newmark: It has become a parliamentary convention for Members to say that they are delighted to have secured an Adjournment debate, but that is not quite true in this case because the circumstances that have led to my securing this debate are of such concern to me, my constituents Luke Atkinson and Michael Binnington, their families and their legal representatives.
	What has become a tragedy for all involved began as a simple family holiday to Cyprus in August 2006. I want to give a brief account of what happened according to the human rights organisation Fair Trials International, which has been working closely with Luke and Michael. On their first night in Cyprus, Luke and Michael went to a local nightclub with six other members of their family. Unfortunately, a fight broke out after a local man was accused of touching a girl who was part of their group. One of the boys subsequently sustained a head injury and went to a clinic to get medical attention. Some local boys on mopeds followed them in a threatening manner, with coshes; they alluded to having a knife.
	Luke and Michael's uncle, Julian Harrington, who had been asleep, was called and drove to the scene in his hire car. First, he went to the club and picked up Michael and Luke before heading to the clinic. At some point thereafter, Julian encountered two boys on a moped driving towards his car the wrong way down a one-way street. Neither of the boys was wearing a helmet. The car clipped the moped; that resulted in the rider falling off and hitting his head on a pole. Tragically, his passenger, who also fell off, later died from head injuries.
	Julian was charged with manslaughter and grievous bodily harm on the basis that he had deliberately driven into the moped three times. Even the survivor of the incident said that the car bumped into the moped just once. Although Luke and Michael had been only passengers in the car, all three men were deemed to have formed a common purpose in wishing to harm the two victims and were charged with exactly the same offences. I will return to the idea of common purpose and to the decision to press charges against each of the three men, but first I want to finish the background.
	Mr. Harrington was advised that if he pleaded guilty, he would receive a sentence of between six and 10 years' imprisonment. According to his lawyer in Cyprus, the trial judge gave an indication that Julian should change his plea and that the prosecution should consider its case against Michael and Luke. Julian was given very little time to reach a decision and was understandably confused by the trial process in a foreign country. The circumstances are murky, to say the least. Nevertheless, he decided to plead guilty to avoid a sentence in excess of 20 years, and also to save his nephews and their wider family from any more uncertainty and potential misery.
	Mr. Harrington received a very severe sentence of 15 years—far in excess of that usually given to Cypriot nationals found guilty of such offences. The consequences
	for Luke and Michael were initially more positive. Although they had to stand trial and were subjected to a fierce media frenzy, open abuse and threats in court, they were duly acquitted by the three judges of the assize court and returned to England to get on with their lives.
	This debate has arisen because of the prosecution's subsequent decision to appeal against the acquittals to appease public expectation of a conviction. No new or additional evidence was presented by the prosecution, but on 29 January 2008, the supreme court of Cyprus held that the assize court had not given proper weight to the evidence and declared Luke and Michael guilty of manslaughter and GBH. The two boys were due to be sentenced yesterday, but at the last minute the hearing was suspended until 4 April. Needless to say, they are determined not to return to Cyprus to serve any sentence and have vowed to fight the inevitable extradition proceedings from the Cypriot Government.
	I hope that I can prevail upon the Under-Secretary to do one of two things. The first and most important is to intervene directly with the Cypriot Government to fend off the initiation of extradition proceedings and to encourage a full review of the case and its handling. The second is to appeal to the Home Secretary to resist the extradition application if and when it is made.
	Two key issues strike me as having a bearing on the case. The first is the right to a fair trial. There should be no doubt about the inflammatory effect of the case on public opinion in Cyprus. It was, indeed, a tragedy for the victims, their families and the local community—I do not seek to diminish that. However, there has clearly been an incentive for the Republic to achieve the maximum retributive justice and claim credit for doing that.
	The unusual length of the sentence that was handed down is indicative of the public—perhaps even political—pressure that has been brought to bear on the court in this case. All three defendants, but especially Luke and Michael, were tried in the press as much as in court.
	I had been led to believe that the legal system in the Republic of Cyprus is very similar to our own. Indeed, the Republic's legal tradition stems in part from residual English statute law and the court must have regard to both common law and equity. Nevertheless, the more I look at the case, the more fundamental the difference between the administration of justice in the UK and that in Cyprus appears to be.
	When the assize court found the two men innocent, the prosecution appealed against the decision so that the desired result could be achieved. However, rather than hold a retrial, the supreme court substituted its own verdict. Luke and Michael were convicted by three judges who had never heard the evidence against them in open court. The decision to substitute a verdict instead of ordering a retrial is extremely unusual in most jurisdictions. Indeed, I have been told that it is without precedent in most banana republics, let alone established western democracies. If the Under-Secretary knows of other examples, I should be grateful if she would place them on the record in her reply.
	By way of comparison, I want to consider the circumstances that would prevail if a similar case occurred in this country. Since the Criminal Justice Act 2003—and, indeed, before that in certain rare circumstances—British
	prosecutors have been able to appeal against acquittals. However, such an appeal can be ordered only with permission from the Director of Public Prosecutions if there is new and compelling evidence and if it is in the public interest. In other words, there are rigorous checks and balances. Even in the event of a successful appeal by the prosecution, the outcome for the accused is a full retrial.
	An alternative regime, under section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1972, allows the Attorney-General to refer a point of law, which arises out of a trial on indictment that resulted in an acquittal, to the Court of Appeal. Such a referral clarifies the legal issues at stake but, crucially, without affecting the acquittal of the defendant. Those two approaches of English law have in mind the paramount need to do justice to the defendant, regardless of the desirability to the state of securing convictions.
	The case that we are considering is especially worrying because, although the Cypriot supreme court has the power to
	"uphold, vary, set aside or order the retrial of a case as it may think fit",
	it substituted its own verdict instead of ordering a retrial. If the supreme court had serious doubts about the safety of Michael and Luke's acquittal, it behoved it, in the interests of justice, to order a retrial and not simply overrule the assize court.
	When I met the acting high commissioner of Cyprus yesterday, he was firmly of the opinion that the decision to overturn the acquittal was purely and simply a judicial decision of the supreme court. However, the appeal of the original acquittal was not initiated by the court; rather, it was initiated by the state. We are therefore entitled to ask how far the decision was political and how far it may have been influenced by the oxygen of publicity and the tinderbox of public opinion.
	Until about 10 years ago, the Cypriot Attorney-General did not have a right to appeal against an acquittal by the assize court, but since then I understand that about 60 per cent. of acquittals have been appealed. The constitution of Cyprus includes the relevant provisions of the European convention on human rights and fundamental freedoms, which Cyprus has adopted and which includes the right to a public and fair trial. It is the belief of many of those involved in the case that the trial that all three men received was far too public and not fair enough.
	Article 6 of the European convention on human rights guarantees the right to trial by an impartial tribunal within a reasonable time. Yet months after being acquitted, Luke and Michael may face extradition to Cyprus as a result of a prosecution appeal whose major motivation appears to have been public opinion. The two men are also placed in an invidious position by the fact that Cyprus has a two-tier legal system, which gives them no further recourse to appeal their conviction or sentence after such an arbitrary ruling by the supreme court.
	My final concern about the conduct of the trial is about the way that Julian Harrington's entry of a guilty plea was handled. I am grateful to the acting high
	commissioner of the Republic for clarifying that although there is no formal mechanism of plea bargaining in Cyprus, a timely guilty plea can be accepted in mitigation. However, for better or worse, Mr. Harrington believed that he had some incentive to give up years of his life—he thought that he was getting something in return. Indeed, he got far more than he bargained for, and so did his nephews.
	The question that must be asked, and answered, is: what reasons could Julian Harrington possibly have had to fall on his sword to no purpose, unless he had been led to believe something—or rather, misled—by the Cypriot authorities as to the likely consequences of his guilty plea? In other words, it would seem that there was some sort of plea bargaining or informal understanding. That fact alone should justify pressure from Her Majesty's Government for a full review of the case by the Cypriot authorities and, in the interim, the refusal of any extradition proceedings that may be brought in due course in respect of Luke and Michael.
	My second strand of argument is an attempt to address the substantive issue of law at the heart of the case—the concept of "common purpose"—in so far as I am able to do so without being an English lawyer, let alone a Cypriot one. I have had the opportunity of seeing the supreme court's judgment, some of which makes disquieting reading. The judgment quotes from Michael's statement in the following unequivocal terms:
	"I am innocent. When I got in the car, driven by Julian, it did not enter my mind there and then that there was anything wrong going on. I didn't know where he was going and I was very drunk. I never intended to hurt anybody and I was in no position to do anything or to prevent anything from happening."
	Luke's statement reads along similar lines, but the judgment comments only that
	"The Assize Court did not attach any weight to these unsworn statements, which it considered totally unconvincing."
	Both Michael and Luke maintain that they were never given the opportunity to make a statement under oath and that they would have been happy to do so.
	Even more worryingly, there is a claim that Luke's testimony had mentioned Julian Harrington's exhortation —"Let's get them!"—when the boys got in the car. Luke denies that that was part of his testimony. The legal basis for prosecuting Michael and Luke, as well as Julian Harrington, was that the three had cooked up a plan for revenge and had all agreed upon it.
	In that context, the words "Let's get them!" have chilling connotations and call to mind the case of Derek Bentley. That case is remembered up and down the country for Bentley's shout of "Let him have it, Chris!" to his accomplice, who subsequently shot and killed a policeman. It is remembered also as one of the most famous miscarriages of justice, and one that was rectified by a posthumous pardon for Bentley after 45 years.
	The similarity of that case to the prosecution's claim in the present case, that the words "Let's get them!" amounted to a plan of a joint criminal enterprise, is striking. Nevertheless, the assize court found that there was no common purpose or joint enterprise between the three boys to kill or injure the victims or anybody else. The supreme court disagreed, suggesting that the assize court had erred in law. Indeed, the only argument that I have heard in favour of the boys'
	conviction without a retrial is that the appeal concerned only a point of law. I do not believe that reasoning to be robust.
	What the supreme court really meant by an appeal on a point of law was that it placed a different interpretation on the facts. Even the prosecution admitted when making its case that the evidence against the boys was "circumstantial". Instead of examining each event in isolation, as the assize court had done, the supreme court drew its conclusions from the entire sequence of events that transpired that night, and it inferred that there had been a common purpose. However, if the supreme court believed that the assize court had misdirected itself on a point of law, it should have ordered a retrial so that a new court could be properly directed as to the law and hear the facts.
	It is crucial to establish both the facts and the sequence of events, and there are manifest difficulties in doing so. Whether we consider the abundance of unsworn statements; the repeatedly changed testimony from witnesses who saw the events unfold at some distance and, I hasten to add, in the dark; the inaccuracies and additions to testimony; or the plain confusion about the sequence of events, the facts are about as clear as mud.
	Luke and Michael were arguably too drunk to have formed any common purpose, malicious or otherwise, and in any event were unable to get out of a moving vehicle. There does not appear to be any clear justification for the expedient of throwing out an acquittal and substituting a guilty verdict. The fact remains that the supreme court overruled the assize court and inferred the existence of a common purpose without itself having heard a shred evidence. That is deeply worrying.
	I shall draw my remarks to a close by thanking the acting high commissioner of Cyprus to the UK, Mr. Dimitris Hatziargyrou, for agreeing to meet me to discuss the case. As a diplomat responsible to the Executive of a state that believes in the full separation of powers, he was in a difficult situation, but he acquitted himself with both great courtesy and professionalism. I should also like to thank Saima Hirji from Fair Trials International and Karen Todner, Luke and Michael's English solicitor, for their invaluable assistance. Finally, I ask the Minister to do all that she can to secure a just outcome for Michael and Luke.